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60-year-old walks for hours on end to create epic snow art with just his feet

The photographs are truly something to behold.

Simon Beck's Snow Art/Facebook

Simon Beck didn't set out to become a world-renowned snowshoe artist, yet here he is. The former cartographer was trained in engineering at Oxford, but has spent the past ten years making jaw-dropping art in the snow and sand using only his feet.

Beck uses geometrical and geographical tools to plot out his designs, but it's still baffling to see him walk exactly where he needs to to create them. His designs can take 12 hours of walking or more, and he'll take around 40,000 steps for an average-sized piece. It's beautiful, it's creative, it's exercise—and it's fleeting.


Being made out of snow and sand, which are constantly being blown or washed away, Beck's artwork doesn't last. Such is the nature of creating art in nature, but that doesn't bother him in the slightest. "Most people will only ever see most of the world's artwork as photographs," he said in an article in Artsy. "Even with the Mona Lisa—probably only a minority of people have actually seen the real thing, but everyone's seen a photograph of it." As long as Beck gets a photo of his massive designs, it's all good.

And the photographs are truly something to behold. Check out some of his snow creations on Facebook and Instagram.

One of the challenges of working in the snow is that conditions can change throughout the creation of a piece. Snow might melt or become exceptionally icy.

Or, other people might not realize what is happening and inadvertently mess up your work. For instance, there's nothing to stop a skier from plowing right through a design.

Beck's sand drawings offer a different kind of challenge. Timing out the tides and dealing with the wind—as well as other beachgoers—makes sand art tricky, but the final product is totally worth it.

On occasion, Beck even uses his art to make statements about issues in the world. For instance, there are 81 triangles in this drawing, but he says he left 77 unshaded to represent "the 77 countries where LGBT people are given a hard time."

Beck has created most of his 300-plus land drawings in Europe. However, he will be spending two weeks of January 2020 in Silverthorne, Colorado, where he will create between five and 15 of his iconic works of snow art.

ABC News did a segment on Beck and his work, where he explains a bit of his process and how he uses a ski pole to measure parts of the design. Watch and enjoy:

Simon Beck has become a global sensation for his installations made by stepping through snow with snowshoes and a ski pole.


This article originally appeared on 01.01.20

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31 Days of Happiness Countdown: this guy's awesome job blowing up snow. (Day 4)

Hello and welcome to Day 4 of Upworthy's 31 Days of Happiness Countdown! Each day between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31, we're sharing stories we hope will bring joy, smiles, and laughter into our lives and yours. It's been a challenging year for a lot of us, so why not end it on a high note with a bit of happiness? Check back tomorrow for another installment!

The weird, invisible jobs that help keep society moving are fascinating. If you sat me down in front of a TV and told me I was going to watch a show about professional duck wranglers or fortune cookie writers, I'd tell you to go make popcorn. How do you get this kind of job? What is their day like? What do they talk about at the fortune cookie-writing watercooler? I want to know.

This video from The Seattle Times is like the epitome of that fascination. It's  a profile of John Stimberis, a Department of Transportation worker whose job is to help keep drivers safe by purposefully triggering avalanches with explosives.

Wait — how does that keep drivers safe, again? You'll just have to check it out.

Even if you already knew there were professional snow-bombing-avalanche-makers, the interview and details (like his little bike!) are so delightful. And there's something so fascinating, so calming, and so amazing about watching the snow go BOOM.

More days of happiness here:DAY 1 / DAY 2 / DAY 3 / [DAY 4] / DAY 5 / DAY 6 / DAY 7 / DAY 8 / DAY 9 / DAY 10 / DAY 11 / DAY 12 / DAY 13 / DAY 14 / DAY 15 / DAY 16 / DAY 17 / DAY 18 / DAY 19 / DAY 20 / DAY 21 / DAY 22 / DAY 23 / DAY 24 / DAY 25 / DAY 26 / DAY 27 / DAY 28 / DAY 29 / DAY 30 / DAY 31
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It snowed in the Sahara. Yes, it's gorgeous. No, it doesn't mean climate change is fake.

If the deserts miss the rain, they must REALLY be missing the snow. Until now, anyway.

The Sahara Desert, the largest hot desert in the world (Antartica and the Arctic are technically deserts too), doesn't get a lot of precipitation.

It's hot, it's dry, and it's vast; covering over 3 million square miles of land in northern Africa.

When it comes to rain, the Sahara only gets between half an inch and four inches of rain per year (that's not a lot!).

But snow, in the desert? That's unheard of ... right?

An amateur photographer just happened to be on hand to catch an honest-to-God snowfall in the Sahara Desert on Dec. 19, 2016.

All photos by Karim Bouchetata/Rex Features via AP Images.

The snow fell in a town called Ain Sefra in Algeria, much to the shock of its residents.

It's actually not the first time this region of the Sahara has been dusted with white powder. Snowfall hit the area all the way back in 1979.

There are also reports of light dustings elsewhere across the Sahara in 2005 and 2012.

Outside of these bizarre occurrences, there's no clear record of major snow having ever hit the area before.

(Though some high-altitude Sahara mountain ranges have been known to get snow, powder in the lower regions is extremely rare.)

The photographer, Karim Bouchetata, said on Facebook that the snow stayed for about a day but quickly melted away.

That leaves these incredible photographs as some of the only remaining evidence of an event that may not occur again for a decade or more. If ever.

Snow in the desert is a beautiful coincidence. A rare moment where dozens of weather factors come together perfectly.

What it isn't — just in case the thought crossed your mind — is any sort of proof that we shouldn't be worried about global warming.

"A cold day in the Sahara does not disprove global warming any more than a heat wave in December proves it," says Steven Stoll, a professor who teaches climate history at Fordham University. "No event stands alone."

It's getting hotter everywhere, Stoll says, and sometimes when that heat gets pushed around and distributed, it can lead to cooling in certain places. That may be the case in the Sahara.

But even if this once-a-decade-or-so event is ultimately completely random and meaningless, it sure is beautiful. And we're lucky a photographer was there to capture the mesmerizing results.

Heroes

A climate expert and a cartoonist explain why winter storms may be intensifying.

Ready or not, winter weather is on its way.

Part beautiful, part treacherous, snow and ice storms can wreak havoc on homes, businesses, and travel plans from coast to coast.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

And though you may be bundling your coat, climate experts say there's a major culprit to blame: global warming.

Nonfiction comic artist Andy Warner illustrated this helpful lesson from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who details how climate change is behind some of our most recent snowstorms. (Whether or not the president-elect would like to believe it.)

All illustrations by Andy Warner, used with permission.

With storms potentially intensifying due to climate change, it's best to be prepared.

Whether it's a blizzard, hurricane, earthquake, or zombie attack, it's important to keep some basic supplies on hand in your home and car in case of emergency.

Since electricity and emergency resources may not be available, your home-based kit should include enough drinking water and nonperishable food for each person in your household to live on for three days. It should also include items like flashlights, a radio, a battery-operated cell phone charger, a first-aid kit, blankets and/or warm clothes, and any prescription medicine you're currently taking. And if you have a pet, don't forget to include food and water for them as well.

Photo by iStock.

A smaller, but similar kit for your car should also include jumper cables, road flares or cones, an ice scraper, and hand warmers.

As climate change makes our weather patterns more intense and less predictable, we need to learn to adapt.

That means preparing and looking out for friends and neighbors when the worst happens. But it also means getting out there and making the most of the snow. It's not going anywhere — might as well enjoy it.

Ziggy plays in the snow in Melville, New York. Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images.

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